DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61022#0095
THE MADONNA AND CHILD
that he was attracted to the freedom and the quaintnesses of
Florentine methods of dress. In the ‘ Nicolini Madonna ’ (Plate
xxix.), called the ‘large Panshanger Madonna,’ (dated 1508), also
a picture spoilt by restoration, these playfulnesses of dress are
more strongly emphasised, and are coupled with the love of
graceful detail in the head-dress and the hair which might be
called Verrocchian and Florentine, had it not already appeared
in the ‘ Vision of the Knight ’ and in the ‘ Sposalizio.’
In this picture there occurs, with a new and stronger type of
Madonna’s head, a marked heroisation of the Infant form, a tendency
which, whencesoever it may have been derived, recurs through-
out Raphael’s later periods. It is to be noted again in the un-
finished Madonna called the ‘Colonna’ (Plate xxx.), at Berlin,
where it accompanies still another experiment in the Madonna
type, a head in so many ways unlike Raphael’s usual figures that
the conventional hypothesis of the work of assistants has been
dragged in as an explanation of the picture. In both of these
also there occurs a more remarkable feature. Besides the study of
a pattern, which was with Raphael from the first, there is a new
field of observation in the disposition of the figures to give the
group solidity and mass. Foreshortening and careful drawing are
partly responsible for producing this effect (compare the hands
holding the book in the ‘ Colonna ’ and ‘ Connestabile ’ Madonnas),
but it is due still more to careful observation of light and shade.
In both pictures the Infant’s arm, reaching to the breast, with its
attendant shadow, gives the keynote which is carried further by a
hundred details in drapery and limb, and this note severs the
picture completely, not only from Perugian works, but even
from early ‘ Florentine ’ Madonnas, such as the ‘ Granduca ’ and
the ‘Nicolini.’ This deliberate effort towards obtaining relief
marks perhaps the influence of Leonardo, or, joined with the
heroisation of the Infant form, that of Michelangelo, but the
close-fitting bodice of the Madonna, showing neither sculpturesque
nor fluid treatment in the folds and scarcely a suggestion of the
73
that he was attracted to the freedom and the quaintnesses of
Florentine methods of dress. In the ‘ Nicolini Madonna ’ (Plate
xxix.), called the ‘large Panshanger Madonna,’ (dated 1508), also
a picture spoilt by restoration, these playfulnesses of dress are
more strongly emphasised, and are coupled with the love of
graceful detail in the head-dress and the hair which might be
called Verrocchian and Florentine, had it not already appeared
in the ‘ Vision of the Knight ’ and in the ‘ Sposalizio.’
In this picture there occurs, with a new and stronger type of
Madonna’s head, a marked heroisation of the Infant form, a tendency
which, whencesoever it may have been derived, recurs through-
out Raphael’s later periods. It is to be noted again in the un-
finished Madonna called the ‘Colonna’ (Plate xxx.), at Berlin,
where it accompanies still another experiment in the Madonna
type, a head in so many ways unlike Raphael’s usual figures that
the conventional hypothesis of the work of assistants has been
dragged in as an explanation of the picture. In both of these
also there occurs a more remarkable feature. Besides the study of
a pattern, which was with Raphael from the first, there is a new
field of observation in the disposition of the figures to give the
group solidity and mass. Foreshortening and careful drawing are
partly responsible for producing this effect (compare the hands
holding the book in the ‘ Colonna ’ and ‘ Connestabile ’ Madonnas),
but it is due still more to careful observation of light and shade.
In both pictures the Infant’s arm, reaching to the breast, with its
attendant shadow, gives the keynote which is carried further by a
hundred details in drapery and limb, and this note severs the
picture completely, not only from Perugian works, but even
from early ‘ Florentine ’ Madonnas, such as the ‘ Granduca ’ and
the ‘Nicolini.’ This deliberate effort towards obtaining relief
marks perhaps the influence of Leonardo, or, joined with the
heroisation of the Infant form, that of Michelangelo, but the
close-fitting bodice of the Madonna, showing neither sculpturesque
nor fluid treatment in the folds and scarcely a suggestion of the
73